Have you ever heard of Scott Rosenblum? Art Margulis? Rick Sindel? They’re criminal defense attorneys. You’ve probably seen them on television, standing on the courthouse steps talking to reporters.
You probably feel like you have a good sense of what they do. Movies and television dramas are filled with criminal defense attorneys.
When was the last time you saw a good movie about a patent attorney?
Me neither, and yet Rudy Telscher has become one of the highest profile attorneys in town. He is a partner at Harness Dickey & Pierce. My colleague in the Business section, David Nicklaus, has written about him a couple of times recently. Greg Edwards of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Business Journal just did a feature on him. That is not to mention the national press he has received for a recent case.
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This recent case involves something called patent trolls. These trolls purchase rights to old patents and then look for companies that are doing something similar. They then sue these companies for patent infringement. Generally, the companies that are sued decide to settle. It’s cheaper than fighting.
These trolls largely prey on technology companies. They are especially hazardous to startup ventures, which find it nearly impossible to raise money while a lawsuit is pending.
Telscher took on a patent troll and won. He then asked that the troll pay his legal fees, which amounted to $1.8 million. The request for legal fees was denied. Telscher appealed that denial all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a unanimous ruling last month, the Supreme Court granted his request for legal fees and made it easier for the winner to recover legal fees from the loser in a patent infringement case.
This was not Telscher’s first big victory. In fact, before business writers discovered Telscher, he was a hero in the sports page. In 2007, sportswriter Derrick Goold wrote about Telscher’s victory on behalf of CDM Fantasy Sports, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ entity that operated fantasy sports leagues.
Major League Baseball claimed it owned the statistics and names of its players. Telscher successfully argued that the names and statistics were in the public domain.
Who is this masked man, and how did he get into patent law?
He grew up in Overland. His dad was a carpenter. His mom stayed home and watched Rudy and his two younger sisters. He went to the University of Missouri-Columbia and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 1987. He then went to law school at the University of Iowa.
So he was one of those farsighted guys who realized that a technical background would help in law? No, he intended to be an engineer, but while he was in college, he worked at McDonnell Douglas and met some engineers who were unhappy. Then he met a lawyer who told him a background in engineering would help with patent law.
By the way, his victory in the fantasy baseball case was something of an upset. One of the lawyers on the other side was quoted as saying that Telscher had “pulled a rabbit out of a hat.†Telscher was quoted as saying it was a “once-in-a-lifetime case.â€
So it seemed until this last case. Telscher represented Octane Fitness, which makes high-end elliptical machines. Octane was sued by Icon Health & Fitness. Octane won a summary judgment in the patent infringement case, but was turned down for legal fees. Icon appealed the summary judgment and Octane appealed the denial of legal fees.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear Telscher’s appeal on the denial of fees on the same day he won a judgment of $2.2 million for a shoe company.
He did not work alone. He had three attorneys helping write the briefs for the Supreme Court. They were Steven Holtshouser, Daisy Manning and Kara Fussner.
“The briefs are the heart of the case,†Telscher said. “They’re what the justices read before oral arguments.â€
Oral arguments were about semantics. How weak did a case have to be before legal fees should be granted? Is there a difference between unreasonably weak and objectively baseless? “It’s a search for adjectives,†said Justice Anthony Kennedy. Telscher sensed things were going his way.
Sure enough. The justices eventually decided the case did not have to be totally without merit, but if it was weak enough that it should not have been brought, the defendant could recoup legal fees.
Not all his cases have been so snazzy. He won a case against a Chinese knockoff of his client’s “lighted, artificial ice cubes.†Lighted, artificial ice cubes? You mean they can’t even keep a drink cold?
“They look really cool,†Telscher said.